Aldi is preparing to cut up to 150 jobs from its UK head office technology team, the second wave of redundancies at the discounter this year and part of a global restructuring that has already claimed more than 120 British positions.

The consultation on the technology roles is set to begin in the coming months, it is understood. Earlier this year, Aldi cut 103 jobs from its finance and administration department. Nearly 20 buying directors have also been made redundant. The company has additionally reduced the hours worked by agency cleaning staff at its Warwickshire headquarters, according to the Guardian.

The numbers invite a caveat: Aldi has not said which technology functions will go, how many roles will ultimately be affected, or what the cuts will save. The 150 figure is a ceiling, not a commitment.

Why is Aldi shrinking its head office while opening stores?

The cuts sit alongside an expansion plan, not instead of one. In September, Aldi set out plans to invest £900m in opening 40 new stores in the coming year. It currently operates 1,092 shops in the UK and wants to reach 1,500.

The logic is centralisation. Aldi's German-based owners are reducing head office roles in each of its country operations, including the US, Australia and China, as they centralise more administrative and technology functions at group level.

The group is also outsourcing finance, procurement and administration jobs to India through its partnership with Genpact, a New York-headquartered firm that uses artificial intelligence (software systems that perform tasks normally requiring human judgement) to streamline business functions. Aldi has not disclosed the value or duration of that partnership.

An Aldi spokesperson said: "At Aldi, our promise to customers is that we will always offer great quality products at unbeatable prices. Across our international business, we continuously review all aspects of our operations to ensure we operate simply, efficiently and use our global scale to deliver on that promise."

The spokesperson added: "We are therefore making some adjustments to the way parts of our UK business are structured. Any changes are being introduced gradually and following a consultation period. We recognise that this is difficult for those involved, so we are giving colleagues as much notice as possible, with full support available to everyone affected."

Note what the statement does not contain: no jobs total, no savings target, no timeline beyond "gradually". The promise of "full support" for affected staff carries no published detail on severance terms.

Is the discounter's growth stalling?

The restructuring arrives as Aldi's growth slows. The chain grew sales by just 0.4 per cent in the 12 weeks to November, according to the latest figures from Worldpanel by Numerator (a market research firm that tracks grocery purchases). That compares with 6.6 per cent growth at rival Lidl, 1.2 per cent at Tesco and 0.8 per cent at Sainsbury's.

Aldi's market share stood at 10.4 per cent in the lead-up to November, down from 10.5 per cent at the same point last year. The decline is marginal but directionally new for a chain that had spent years taking share from the established players.

For years, Aldi's expansion forced Tesco and Sainsbury's to launch price-match ranges against the discounter. That pressure has not disappeared. Aldi and Lidl continue to squeeze Asda and Morrisons, both of which have battled significant debt piles since their private equity takeovers.

Yet the 0.4 per cent figure raises a practical question: what does this change for UK shoppers? In the short term, very little. Prices and store openings are driven by competition with Lidl and the price-match ranges, not by head office headcount. The risk is longer-term — if centralisation and outsourcing dilute local buying and technology capability, the speed at which Aldi reacts to UK suppliers and rivals could suffer. Aldi would dispute that; nothing in the current numbers settles it either way.

What is settled is the direction of travel. A retailer that once sold lean operations as its business model is now cutting further into the bone, even as it commits £900m to new stores. The efficiency promise is easy to state. Whether it preserves the growth that justified it is the question the next set of market share figures will have to answer.